False Teachers, Part 2
2 Peter 2v1
16th February 2024
Last week we began to study this verse:
2 Peter 2v1
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false
teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying
the Master who bought them — bringing swift destruction on themselves.
We continue by thinking about Peter's statement that that the false Christian teachers that were plaguing the churches to which he was writing were guilty of even denying the Master who bought them.
Our master is our God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Chapter 1, verse 1). He has bought us with the most precious commodity, His own blood:
1 Corinthians 6v19-20
... You are not your own;
you were bought at a price.
Revelation 5v8-9
... the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb.
Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are
the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song, saying:
"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God
men from every tribe and language and people and nation."
The Greek word translated as master here is despotes. This is not the word the New Testament uses to describe Jesus as Lord (kyrios). It's the word used to describe a slave owner in 1 Timothy 6v1-2, Titus 2v9 and 1 Peter 3v18. Jesus has the right to demand our submission and obedience, but the false teachers are accused of denying Him.
Peter doesn't elaborate on what he means by denying [our] master, but we can say that it can involve one or more of the following errors:
- We can deny Jesus's authority over us. That is, we can refuse to accept Him as our master. We can claim that we are not subject to His moral teaching, and can adopt the prevailing moral system of the unbelieving society around us.
- We can deny who Jesus is - the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, come in the flesh, perfect, sinless and full of love.
- We can deny the efficacy of His atoning sacrifice, and teach instead that people are saved based on their own goodness and charitable works, rather than on His perfect work on the cross.
- We can deny that He will come again in glory to judge the living an the dead according to God's perfect moral law.
There are still false teachers in the church today. Some of these false teachers are Christians, and some are not. That is, they have not been born again, they have not been adopted as God's children, they do not have the Holy Spirit. It is tragic, obviously, for a person who has never repented of his sins and believed the Gospel, to instruct the church. He's in no position to teach us the things of God. But some Christians, who have been born again and adopted into God's family, can also fall into error. One may ask how they turn away from the truth about God, about man, about sin and about the future, revealed in the Bible. He are some possible answers:
- As Peter says in verse 2, which we will look at another time, "many will follow their shameful ways". That is, we can fall away from the truth because false teachers persuade us to do so.
- We can fall away from the truth because we refuse to accept any part of what the Bible says. This refusal to accept God's teaching can arise because we want to believe that our own sinful actions are not sinful, or because the society around us pressures us - either emotionally or through sanctions such as loss of employment or education. It can also arise because we've been fooled into imagining science or archaeology can disprove the Bible.
- Some people slowly drift away from church, from Bible study, from prayer and from God. After a time, the conviction that the Bible is true can fade, and we can become prey to any kind of false teaching.
I'm sure there are other ways, too.
These are extremely serious matters. Hear what Jesus says about false teachers:
Matthew 18v6
"If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to
stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his
neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
Next week, we'll consider the questions of who were the false teachers that Peter was writing about, and what was the destruction that they faced.